A Moment Aside for February 11, 2021

 A Moment Aside --- 11 February 2021

                                                                  

   Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and is controversial for many people. She is tattooed, out-spoken, and fearless even while maintaining that she is broken and quite often frightened. She has made no secret of her past substance abuse and rejoices in the fact that while this upsets any number of people around the church, it appears to make not one bit of difference to God.

This quote can stand alone, although considering Pr. Nadia’s life, it makes more sense as a lived reality. Are there any of us who could state that we are an “example of holy living”? I could not do that and I won’t pretend I could. Since that is true, this understanding of who Jesus chooses to tell the world about him is truly comforting.

We’d like to think that saints of the Bible or saints of the history of the church are examples of holy living. The reality of it might surprise us. Moses killed a man and ran to hide in the desert. The prophet Elijah was so upset about King Ahab chasing him that he asked to die. David was unfaithful to his wife and plotted a way to have his lover’s husband killed in battle. Some of the later prophet lived in depression and despair; many were asked to do things for the sake of the message that we’d find weird and strange.

Peter denied Jesus and drew a sword on the crowd that came to arrest Jesus. Paul was originally commissioned to persecute the church. John the Evangelist may have failed to keep his Christian community from falling into heresy. Later in church history, St. Augustine and St. Jerome despised each other. Francis of Assisi deserted the army… twice! The theologian Thomas Aquinas was so obese, he had to have a part of his desk and table cut out so he cold sit. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer worked for the Nazi intelligence service, using his position to make contacts with the Allies through neutral nations and he was hanged in a concentration camp for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

God sending the stumblers and sinners? Thank God for that! In these cases, it is the triumph of grace rather than the good sense or abilities of the person that makes the difference. We all have our gifts, true, and those gifts alone will not make the difference unless God uses them to show grace to the world.

Grace – the free gift of God’s love for all of us – is always the point. And our weakness and stumblings will not impede God’s grace from being present.

Thank God for that… and take comfort in that.